Home Entertainment Extras! Brad Pitt is thinking about crucifying Jesus, Del Toro officially goes Dark, David R. Ellis passes away in JHB, The Host offers you a choice and The Human Centipede 3 is back on track to crushing your faith in humanity! Plus much more!

Extras! Brad Pitt is thinking about crucifying Jesus, Del Toro officially goes Dark, David R. Ellis passes away in JHB, The Host offers you a choice and The Human Centipede 3 is back on track to crushing your faith in humanity! Plus much more!

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Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

We kick off today with a look at the first 4 minutes of Warm Bodies, the zom-rom-com that all in the space of a single trailer went from being just yet another Twilight clone to one of our most highly anticipated movies of the year. And this clip is certainly doing nothing to dull that excitement.

You may have noticed Guillermo Del Toro’s name popping up quite a bit today. And trust me, we didn’t plan it that way, it just sort of happened. Or actually, it’s still happening, as there are still some more stories to do with the popular Mexican director. First up is the news that Lucasfilm actually reached out to Del Toro in connection with possibly directing Star Wars – Episode VII, but the director had to turn them down before things got too serious.

 “We got one phone call to my agent saying, ‘Is Guillermo interested?’ And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I’m pursuing stuff that I’m generating already… It was just a phone call, it didn’t go past that, it was very nice to be asked, but believe it or not, I’m busy enough.

 I think the fans deserve somebody that is just going to immerse themselves completely. As a geek, I would have loved to see Brad Bird take it.”

Oh trust me, Guillermo, we know you’re busy.

And one of those “stuff” that Del Toro is “generating” finally became official as IGN has been able to confirm with the director that he is indeed working on a superhero ensemble movie for Warner Bros comprised of DC Comics’ more supernaturally inclined characters, similar to the currently published Justice League Dark title, which is currently being called Dark Universe.

“I’m working on it. I’m writing the outline and we’re already in talks with a writer. A very, very good writer. People are probably going to be happy with who we have chosen. He accepted. I’ve been courting this writer, who I think is the perfect guy for this job. We’re doing it. Hopefully it will happen.”

And it looks like this has actually been in development for a while now, with Warner Bros looking to make it part of their new superhero tapestry.

“The movement for this happened before [The Avengers]. They were already galvanized to launch ‘Justice League’ and they were galvanized to make their universe cohesive… They are really, really, with ‘Superman’, very, very confident with what they have. They are now feeling they have two pillars. Batman and Superman… There’s a foundation that now they can build on.”

A new head turning French poster has been released for Harmony Korrine’s Spring Breakers, which means that when your colleagues now catch you doing the old “head turned sideways” look while ogling the bikini clad lasses, you can actually tell them that it’s all the poster designer’s fault.

Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) will not be going to the ball it seems. The director has pulled out of Disney’s new live-action adaptation of Cinderella, which would see a new take on the classic story and already has Cate Blanchett cast as the evil stepmother. Apparently Romanek’s take on the tale was far too dark for Disney’s tastes which is what prompted his departure. Gee, the guy who turned funnyman Robin Williams into a disturbing stalker went too dark? Who would’ve thunk it?!

Remember yesterday when we all had our faith in humanity restored? Well, prepare to lose it all again. The wheels on The Human Centipede 3 are about to start turning again, as the original film’s star Dieter Laser has settled his legal dispute with writer-director Tom Six and has officially signed on for the threequel. EW also reports that a “big American celebrity” is attached to star, but who though is still under wraps.

And in case you’ve forgotten, or maybe you were just looking for some nightmare fuel, Six last revealed that this third film is looking to up the stakes by having a 500 person centipede. You may now proceed to vomit in your mouth.

The Lebanese Cinema Movie Guide (which I have to admit, sounds like a title Borat would think up) has 7 new exclusive images for Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful which show James Franco up to some monkey business, as well as standing around in cheesy poses.

And now for a bit of unfortunate news, there have been reports that director David R. Ellis has been found dead in his hotel room in Johannesburg. He was in country doing pre-production scouting for Kite, the proposed anime adaptation he was going to do with Samuel L. Jackson. Ellis began his career as a stuntman working on films such as Smokey and the Bandit, Lethal Weapon, Fatal Attraction and Scarface, before becoming a second-unit director on such titles as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He would eventually craft out a solo career with the second and fourth Final Destination movies, Snakes on a Plane, Cellular, Asylum and Shark Night 3D.

At this point the cause of death is unknown. He was 60 years old at the time.

Rodrigo Santoro spoke to CBR where he spilled a little bit of info on 300: Rise of an Empire, the sequel to Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, in which he will be reprising his role as the Persian god-king Xerxes.

“I would say that you get to know a little bit about [Xerxes’] backstory, which I thought is pretty cool. It’s more like you have the new Athenian, [General Themistocles played by Sullivan Stapleton]. You have Eva Green’s character, [Artemisia], which is a commander, a naval commander, my naval commander, and you have Xerxes. It gravitates between all three, what’s going on.”

Relative feature film director newcomer Noam Murro was picked by Warner Bros to step into Zack Snyder’s blood soaked sandals, so how does it differ working with him?

“I didn’t see the movie yet, the final result, but the experience — I mean, Zack was pretty much involved because he wrote it and he’s producing it. His hands are there, but Noam will have his own take on directing it. I think it’s going to be pretty awesome, and the fans are going to be pleased.”

A trio of new posters have been revealed for Andrew Niccol’s adaptation of Twilight torturer author Stephanie Meyer’s The Host, and they all want you to choose. I have a feeling that some of you are going to choose to rather swallow a live porcupine than see this.

Hanna director Seth Lochhead has been tapped by Sony Pictures to pen the adaptation for Shadow of the Colossus, the critically acclaimed Playstation videogame about a man who must travel the lands, battling and killing 16 giant creatures called colosi, in order to the restore the life of a girl. Chronicle director Josh Trank was previously announced to be helming the fantasy film and the pair will certainly have a daunting task ahead of them. SOTC is considered to be one of the greatest videogames of its generation and every single time the argument of “Whether videogames can be considered art” is made, it’s usually touted as Exhibit A by the pro-art side.

Brad Pitt is apparently circling a titular lead role in Pontius Pilate, a biopic about the 1st Century Roman prefect who presided over Jesus Christ’s trial at the hands of the Sanhedrin and who “authorized” his crucifixion. The script has been written by Woman on Top and Tortilla Soup screenwriter Vera Blasi and “follows the evolution of Lucius Pontius Pilate from the sensitive son of a Roman Knight into a ferocious soldier whose warrior exploits make him a general and puts him on a political track under the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Promised a military governorship in Egypt, Pilate is instead assigned by Tiberius to become the prefect of Judea, at a time when Jerusalem was a cauldron of religious tensions between various factions of the Jewish faith.”

The script is said to be based primarily on historical fact but sets to humanize Pilate, as it examines how a serious of bad judgements led him to the desperate position of allowing the people to crucify a man whom he could personally not find guilty of the crimes he was being accused of. Blasi’s script is also said to equally highlight and humanize the viewpoints of the Jewish leaders who engineered Christ’s execution, so don’t expect this to get too preachy for either side.

With Pitt having quite a few projects currently on his plate, it’s unknown when this will happen though.

Back in 2006, filmmaker Christopher Salmon had the idea to turn acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman’s short story The Price into a feature film. But would a pretty unknown and untested filmmaker get the approval of somebody that is essentially a Geek God to adapt his work? Make a short animatic version of what you plan to do of course! Salmon did just that, and eventually the short film made it’s way to Gaiman himself who liked it so much that he has now officially given his blessing for it to be made as a proper film.

This is the animatic I created in 2006 which convinced author Neil Gaiman to grant me the rights to create a 3D CG animated film of his remarkable short story, “The Price.” The intent of this animatic was to showcase my ability as a filmmaker and storyteller, and focused on creating an emotional template rather than to convey a visually cohesive style (which is occurring now in production with the coordinated help of artists, designers and digital sculptors).

You can read Gaiman’s short story, about a “an old black cat that battles an unseen enemy on the narrator’s front porch almost every night”, over here.

Last Updated: January 8, 2013

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